(Old) Tool Buying on Impulse

[mahking51]

Jimi

I am afraid my slope with precision instruments is far steeper than my plane one!

You really should give me a call......... :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
I have one or two I need rid of.... :twisted: :twisted:
Cheers Martin

 

[bugbear]

Also tools I don't recognise if they look interesting and possibly useful, and I'm also a sucker for anything from the world of metalworking that looks precision and is very cheap.

I once bought a tool (looked like some sort of small, special purpose clamp/vise).

50p.

It turned out to be a rather unusual clamp, for putting tension on the main spring of a old fashioned gun!

If further turns out that people who work on old guns will pay good money for these tools.

So when I found another two (ditto), which I paid a quid for (waddya' want for these little clamps?) I ebayed them.

Got the thick end of 100 GPB.

Moral - as we started - " Also tools I don't recognise if they look interesting and possibly useful"

BugBear

 

[tekno.mage]

tekno.mage, I'll give you one tip that is blindingly obvious, when it's been pointed out!
Grooving, rebating etc, start at the far end!

Roy.

Thanks - I'll definitely remember that tip when I come to test out the combination plane once I've sharpened up all it's blades. I'd guess the best one for practicing with is the smallest type that cuts a straight groove, despite the curved ones looking lots more interesting

tekno.mage

 

[tekno.mage]

I am afraid my slope with precision instruments is far steeper than my plane one!

8)

Jim

I have a very bad vintage audio and electronic test equipment slope that includes several vintage Tannoy speakers and quite a lot of lovely old bakelite meters of various kinds and sizes. All of these are still in use and much more usuable than their modern equivalents I must admit I find a large old analogue meter so much easier to read than these tiny modern digital things with LCD numbers that you can't read when the light is either too bright or too dim, or you are looking at it from an angle.

Oh, and there is the sewing slope too. At least my partner joins me slithering down on the test equipment and precision old tools slopes!

tekno.mage

 

[Alf]

tekno.mage, I'll give you one tip that is blindingly obvious, when it's been pointed out!
Grooving, rebating etc, start at the far end!

Roy.

Thanks - I'll definitely remember that tip when I come to test out the combination plane once I've sharpened up all it's blades. I'd guess the best one for practicing with is the smallest type that cuts a straight groove, despite the curved ones looking lots more interesting

*shameless self-promotion* Combination Plane How-to *end shameless self-promotion*

 

[Eric The Viking]

... quite a lot of lovely old bakelite meters of various kinds and sizes.

You might enjoy these then:



I can testify that they work really well, although my decent sound card has some issues with them because of its 'signal paths'.

I've also got some a few Ernest Turner RHZ PPMs kicking around somewhere, and some real twin-needle ones waiting for a power supply (and the time).

If you haven't wasted hours on this site, you shouldn't, of course...

 

[Racers]

Hi, tekno.mage

Tannoy dual concentric? Very nice.

I have a Studer 807 if you want it.

Pete

 

[bugbear]

tekno.mage, I'll give you one tip that is blindingly obvious, when it's been pointed out!
Grooving, rebating etc, start at the far end!

Roy.

Thanks - I'll definitely remember that tip when I come to test out the combination plane once I've sharpened up all it's blades.

Sharpen one blade and give it a try - sharpening all the blades of a combo is tedious.

BugBear (with a #44, #050, and #405)

 

[AndyT]

Hit the nail right on the head there G....my cue for old tool gloat...

A 50p hammer head...not from a shark ( :roll: ) but from a bootfair...

...bit of that seasoned cherry from my neighbour's garden...whittled down wearing me waistcoat after a day at the office....et voila...a perfectly useable...um...slater's hammer?

I think it is a slater's hammer....SCS written on the head... :?:

Lurching back on-topic (well, back to an earlier digression) Jimi you were wondering if your rather fine hammer was a slater's tool.

I think by now you have admitted that you rather like old tools, and know that you really ought to have a copy of Salaman's really useful and interesting "Dictionary of Woodworking Tools." Page 222 identifies it as a Coach Trimmer's hammer: (there are 19 pages of hammers!)

What did a coach trimmer do? Easy! A quick check in the nearest copy of "English Pleasure Carriages" from 1837 explains:

So what will it be? Are you going to stick at the thirty shilling level, or go for the full four guineas?

 

[tekno.mage]

Hi, tekno.mage

Tannoy dual concentric? Very nice.

I have a Studer 807 if you want it.

Pete

Definitely dual concentrics A pair of Cheviots, a single very early Eaton plus a variety of other later vintage dual concentric oddments (some in cabinets some not). I really don't have the
space for many more... I also have a couple of friends with much larger dual concentric collections than me!

tekno.mage

tekno.mage

 

[tekno.mage]

I've also got some a few Ernest Turner RHZ PPMs kicking around somewhere, and some real twin-needle ones waiting for a power supply (and the time).

If you haven't wasted hours on this site, you shouldn't, of course...

Hmm... I've got a couple of ex BBC PPMs around somewhere along with a rather interesting in-house built phase meter that uses a ring of LEDs to display signal phase shift! I actually use several pairs of large analogue Sifam VU meters with my record decks/mixer etc. Good to see a nice big easy-to-see from across the room type pointer on meters

Oh dear, perhaps you shouldn't have shared that URL.... Back later, I may be some time....

tekno.mage

 

[jimi43]

I have a very bad vintage audio and electronic test equipment slope....

TM....I don't need to say anything...do I?

Andy...you are a blinkin' GENIUS mate! That is amazing...so it is quite old then....I am really made up with that discovery.....I'm glad I made a new handle for it now!!

Wonderful! Will get that book for sure....(big smiles as I go to work!)

Jim

 

[xy mosian]

jimi43, by that took me back. One of the first instruments I used when I started as apprentice in the loudspeaker design labs here in Bradford. Of course we soon moved on to Avo's, big, black and heavy.

xy

 

[tekno.mage]

Really nice meter, Jim - sensible connectors, pointer knob and switch! And easy to read as well.

Regarding AVOs, I used plenty of them many years ago (late 70s - early 80s), but never had one at home (far to expensive!!!) big and heavy. About 10 years ago, someone gave me one that had no battery or case, but was claimed to work... To cut a long story short having got hold of a battery, some of the ranges didn't work :-( So I opened it up.

OMG!!!!

Now I'm not afraid to open things up and fix them, far from it, I even done easy repairs to meter movements and plenty of other fiddly jobs (like repairing a speaker voice coil wire broken off at the joint to the pigtail or replacing the foam surrounds on a pair of Tannoy dual concentric drivers.) and I've even been know to hand-wind tiny little ferrite cores with very fine wire for an electronics project my partner was working on.)

But the inside of an AVO is something else entirely! It's full of horrid twisty fragile little wires from hell... (which are calibrated by length, I believe.) They are everywhere - like a rats nest.

I'd never realised AVOs were manufactured by tiny dark elves small enough connect up the fragile internal wiring without breaking it, and devilish enough to route the wires into more of a tangle than a plate of spagetti just dropped on the floor. I did have a copy of the correct service manual but it was no help at all. It was hand-typed and the only diagram it contained was a line drawing of an AVO on the front page!. The AVO is now languishing unrepaired in the back of a cupboard. I think I put all the screws back. Perhaps one day the AVO elves will visit sort it out

tekno.mage

 

[jimi43]

Pop down to Dover where the elves of the Avo white cliffs forged their crafts in times gone by.

Jim

 

[Eric The Viking]

Pop down to Dover where the elves of the Avo white cliffs forged their crafts in times gone by.

Indeed "Avo," and you know you're home!

I love mine, but the high-impedance one is THE one to have.

Incidentally, does anyone know where you can get those croc clips with rounded ends that go in the leads? I've got the prods, but mine came from eBay years ago sans crocs. I've got some made-up leads, but they're not as nice.

Brilliant bit of kit nonetheless.

 

[jimi43]

I know it is obvious once you know and experts here probably already do but at a risk of stating the obvious...you all know that "AVO" stands for Amps, Volts and Ohms...

Init? 8)

Jim

 

[hunggaur]

my wife is getting very worried about me.

She say's i have devloped a plane fetish, every sunday morning i come back with at least 1 old plane from a car boot as i do at least 3 boot sales every sunday morning.